CHAPTER XVIII.

AN OLD MAID AND A GRANDMOTHER.

In a week they arrived. The old maid was a quiddling thing, and the grandmother was always saying that she could never get over a cold; and then she would tell how she had got it. One day this aunt (her name was Betsy Harper) said to my mother, "Do make your doll's hair curl a little more to the front, and tie her shoe-string a little longer; and there! do fix her apron-string, I hate to see it touch the placket-hole." "Oh!" said her grandmother, "never mind, Betsy, if you had such a cold as I have got; I never can get rid of it." "Do stop," said Betsy. This aunt objected to my having my soup eaten so quick; she always allowed herself five minutes to have it eaten, and no more, nor less. Then I was to hold my spoon just so, and only to put half a spoonful in at a time, for she had known little girls (and she said, why not dolls as well as girls?) to be choked in taking a whole spoonful at a time. Nor must I take a quarter of a spoonful, as I would not have my soup eaten in five minutes. I am sorry to say that I often wished that this aunt was in the Red Sea, and not very near dry land; but I suppose that it was all meant for my good. One evening there was company, and one lady took me up, and said, "This is a beautiful doll." "But don't you think that she would be handsomer, if she had her hair curled a little closer, and if one of her nostrils was a little better shaped, and if one of her eyes was a little higher and blacker," said Betsy Harper. "I don't know, I'm sure," said the lady. At this moment Garafelina came up, and said, that if the lady would be pleased to accept of the doll, and carry it home to her little girl, that she would be very much obliged to her. The lady thanked Garafelina, and said that Amelia would be very much pleased with me. I hoped that my new mother would take good care of me, and love me very much. Whether she did or not, you will hear in the next chapter.